Pasta enters fast-casual restaurant movement

By Kate Krader Bloomberg

Sunday

Jun 10, 2018 at 12:01 AM

If there’s one food that’s timeless, it’s pasta.

In the classic sense, yes, but also in that it can take no time at all to prepare, making for a logical next entry in the fast casual restaurant movement in New York. Notable chefs — veterans of highly lauded Italian restaurants — are now serving speedy versions with top-quality ingredients; so are teams from other parts of the quick service world.

To trace the pasta revolution, look to U.S. fine-dining. From Lilia in New York to Chicago’s Monteverde and Felix Trattoria in Los Angeles, consumers are bucking gluten-free concerns for toothsome bowls of pink peppercorn mafaldini and pesto trofie. Food Business News reports that pasta consumption worldwide was on the rise in 2017, for the second year in a row.

Of course some entrepreneurs would recognize the low margins that pasta offers (even the highest quality product is cheap compared to most proteins) with its quick cooking capabilities. What separates these places from, say, an Olive Garden or a New York deli lunch special is that the pastas are not pre-cooked. What makes the concept viable for a fast casual restaurant is that the sauces can be; most benefit from being made ahead.

Mitchell Davis, executive vice president of the James Beard Foundation, argues that at its roots, pasta is fast food. “Pasta was originally a street food in Naples, where the Neapolitans were and still are called (derogatorily) Mangia Macharoni, the pasta eaters. The tradition is still alive. You can still go to parties near Naples, and find places where they’ll mix a giant cacio pepe in a table cloth and then eat it with their hands (that invariably happens late night),” he said.

Davis is anticipating the imminent arrival of Pastaficio Di Martino, the century-old pasta company from Naples, which is scouting locations around the city including Chelsea Market. At its shops, di Martino, who last year partnered with Dolce & Gabbana to create stylish packages, sell 125 shapes and serve diners at an elegant pasta bar. There’s also take out windows, so customers can eat their pasta al Pomodoro on the run. “The key thing here is they are reclaiming this street food past, in a new way,” says Davis.

Di Martino will join an increasingly crowded field in New York. In late 2017, Pasta Flyer was opened by James Beard-winning chef Mark Ladner. He formerly ran the kitchen at New York’s grand Italian restaurant Del Posto. Pasta Flyer’s spaghetti and meatballs with marinara sauce, fettuccine with creamy alfredo sauce, and organic fusilli in pesto are all made in the amount of time it takes to order and none cost more than $8.75. The pasta itself, flash frozen with a procedure from the 1950s used for vegetables, cooks in exactly 3 minutes.

Another place that can fill a pasta order in less than 5 minutes is the Sosta. The SoHo restaurant is the newest enterprise from the team behind the popular vegan chain By Chloe. Chef Ali LaRaia found inspiration in the 5 euro ($5.91) spaghetti she ate while road tripping around Italy. “I came back to New York and if I wanted a bowl of pasta, I had to make a reservation, and spend $25. It was ridiculous,” she says.

At the Sosta, shapes like gemelli are made in house using an extruder and nothing costs more than $13. The most popular is the pumpkin-shaped zucca vodka, with a sauce of tomato, cream, and the eponymous spirit. There are 16 pasta cooking baskets in action at any one time. LaRaia confirms there are plans to expand in the city and possibly the country.

Nearby the Sosta in SoHo is the re-opened Italian spot, Coco Pazzo, from veteran chef Pino Luongo, whose former empire included il Cantinori and Sapore di Mare in the Hamptons (he’s also known as the chef who fired Anthony Bourdain). For the first time, Luongo is promoting fast casual, with the take out shop Coco Pazzo Kitchen, where spaghetti alla vongole and tagliatelle all Bolognese is ready in 10 minutes. Luongo says he designed the space to optimize pasta preparation: One person oversees the boiling; two others are responsible for sauces.

Pasta Flyer’s Ladner is on the same page. He’s discovered that most people have a romantic conception of what a pasta experience should be.

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